


Skinny-Dip

by quipquipquip



Category: Batgirl (Comic), Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-08
Updated: 2011-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quipquipquip/pseuds/quipquipquip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steph tries to convince Cass to go skinny dipping with her. Based on Batgirl 38.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skinny-Dip

Cassandra spoke and heard movements. Words had never been easy for her, even after she'd been allowed to speak. Spoken word was hard, and written word was harder yet. She could read bodies and speak with her hands, but it was a language only she was privy to. Communication was difficult. Without communication, a person is isolated. She'd been a ghost for most of her life, a mute thing not allowed to interact with others.

Her hands had screamed nothing but short, swift arguments. She'd always had the last word.

Cassandra had been reduced to a tool, and no one with any sense tried to speak to their weapons. Even Batman, for all the good that he did, treated her as something useful to manipulate. It was not a bad thing, but it was not truly human interaction.

But, unlike the Batman, Stephanie had no sense at all. Stephanie was a fascinating, irrational being. She talked to everything. She had entire conversations all on her own, one-girl call and response, but Cass didn't feel like she was being talked _around_. She was including her. She understood that most of the time, her replies were just a bunch and release of muscles, a certain angle of her cocked head. She understood, and she tried to learn her language.

She knew that the word for Stephanie was friend. It was what Oracle used, though the tired note she tacked on the end rang closer to _nuisance._ And yes, in a fight Stephanie was more trouble than she was worth. Cassandra routinely knocked her out and laid her gently out before she swung back into the fray. She was used to working alone, the only one screaming with fists and feet, and though she appreciated what Spoiler tried to do, her movements were clumsy. They were the cries and calls of a child, blunt demands that were often ignored. Cass didn't want to see her hurt, so she hurt her instead. A nerve strike, her hands telling her _no, stay here, be safe_.

Batman had told her _no_ , now. Told her with words, words she could not choose to ignore. He had told her not to see Spoiler, and to not go out on patrol with her. Not to talk to her. Not to trust her.

But Cassandra couldn't help but trust her. She told no lies, and Cass knew when someone was lying to her---there were always tells, the body tattling against the things the mouth said. So, when Stephanie came to her cave, she let her in. Friends did that for friends, she'd been told, and she was her friend.

"Hi!" Stephanie said when she came in, hugging her. That was a lie---she sounded happy, but the pressure of her arms around her neck sobbed. The dissonance confused her.

Not knowing what to say was her baseline, though.

"We should go," Stephanie said, and then, "I need to go. Just. Beat some faces in, y'know? I need to go take a bite out of crime ASAP stat."

Cassandra shifted uncomfortably, her hands not knowing what to say. _Sorry_ was the only thing her shoulders and the corners of her mouth could manage.

"Batman told you, huh," Steph answered, then huffed her bangs out of her eyes. "Crap. Fine. No hood-punching. I don't want him breathing down your neck. But I still..."

For once, Stephanie didn't have words, either. Her knuckles were clenched, white points, holding on tightly to her backpack. Everything about her described the need to run.

Cassandra understood that.

"Out, but." She hummed, moving vowels and consonants around with the tip of her tongue. "No masks?"

Steph's eyes lit up. "You'd want to do that with me?"

"If you do," Cass said, hesitant. "We can. Just..."

"No place loud and crazy," she said, before she could chase the words out. Stephanie was good at _knowing_ , at finding Cass's words before she herself could. "Got it, got it, got it. How about we go and wander the pastoral? I used to live in this neighborhood just on the outskirts of town. There was this river that I'd go to, to---think and stuff, when the alternative was fighting with Daddy and getting locked in the closet." Her entire body loosened, sagged, composure eroding. _Daddy, Daddy, Daddy._

Cassandra wanted to pick her shoulders up, straighten her out, barricade her against those thoughts.

Something was wrong. More wrong than just what Batman had implied.

"And, uh, wow, let's jump thought tracks there," Stephanie announced, and took her hand. "Ever been skinnydipping? 'Cause we're going skinnydipping."

Cass's brows bunched together in confusion.

"I'll show you," she said, taking her hand. Her hand said _come with me, I'm not afraid._ Cassandra couldn't help but stare at their fingers, at the simplicity of the touch.

It was rare that her hands did anything other than scream.

*

It was more a creek than a river, no more than ten feet deep and slow-moving. Willow and birches spread pale branches overhead, stars peeking in through the leaves and joints. Stephanie did a quick perimeter scan, then started...undressing. For a moment, Cassandra wondered if she had brought her there in order to spar in natural terrain, but she didn't stop at her cotton shorts and sportsbra. Steph took off _all_ of her clothing, letting her heavy breasts hang free. She was soft in ways that she herself wasn't---larger breasts and wider hips, thicker thighs and a belly that was a flat plane dimpled by a navel instead of being defined abdominal muscles.

Her movements were shy and bold at the same time. She didn't mind that she saw her, but she had a hesitance like she...wasn't sure what she was seeing. It was confusing.

"Why?" Cassandra asked, pulling her own shirt off over her head. She mimicked her movements the same way she copied the skills of a fellow martial artist. First the shirt, then her pants, then her bra, then her underwear. They were left in a neat pile next to Stephanie's.

"Because it's summer, and because it's fun," Steph said, and took her hand again. The contact made her fingers twitch and tingle, calluses kissing softer, paler skin.

"It is?"

"It is," she said, and smiled with her entire body. "I promise."

They stood ankle-deep in the cold stream for a few moments. Steph's shiver prickled gooseflesh across her skin, nipples pulling into hard rosy points, but the shiver wasn't only from the cold. Her face was flushed, pupils dilated. It, too, was confusing.

"Cold," Cassandra murmured, and Steph laughed.

"You'll get used to it." She dragged her deeper, to her knees, her thighs, ribs, then her shoulders. She took both of her hands underneath the water, her long hair slick and dark and spreading into a kelp-like cloud around her. She shivered and smiled at the same time.

"You came here?"

Stephanie took a deep breath that wavered. Her teeth chattered slightly.

"All the time. It was one of the only _nice_ places that we lived in, when I was little. But we could only afford it because Daddy was hitting hot and hard, which meant that Daddy was..." The tension in her jawline told the rest of the story. _Hurting me._

Cass's hands tightened on hers, pure instinct. Stephanie squeezed back, but for a different reason. It was reassuring, it was _I'm okay._ It was _thank you._

"It's...good," she said, trying to stitch together the right adjectives. Something about Steph's bodylanguage said that this was important, that she was looking for a very specific dialogue, and she was trying hard to find how to bridge the gap between their two languages. "Peaceful."

"Yeah," Steph said, looking up at the branches. Cassandra looked at the fascinating curve of her neck, instead. The dark water made it glossy and luminous. "Fond memories, I guess."

"Did you. Skinnydip?"

She laughed. "Nah. Well, sometimes, but I'd always bring a bathingsuit along."

So confusing. Cassandra struggled, because she wanted to get this right. Her friend needed her to understand. She was asking for something with the tilt of her chin and the cant of her hips and she didn't know what.

"Why now?"

"'Cause I'm with you," Stephanie said in a strangled little whisper. She let go of her hands. Trailed down her ribcage. Found the crests of her hips.

Cass's body sang. Dizzy, high. It was the adrenaline from a good fight, the knowledge of winning, _better_ than all that.

"I like being with you," Cassandra said, and meant it with her voice and her hands and everything else she could use to get her point across.

Stephanie kissed her, her lips cold, and it was an entirely new language to learn.


End file.
